


The Cursed Bitch

by gold_pebble



Series: The Demimonde Trilogy [1]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Blood Drinking, Daddy Kink, Detective Percival Graves, Dirty Talk, M/M, Mads Mikkelsen is Grindelwald, Modern Era, Smut, Vampire Credence, no magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-17 12:01:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9322685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gold_pebble/pseuds/gold_pebble
Summary: Credence has stopped counting how many years he has a long time ago.He has stopped counting how many people he has killed too.Conscience is no longer part of his life: he has lovers, feeds from the veins of the humans, murders the ones who bother him; the human world doesn't touch him at all.However, when he meets Percival Graves, a new yorker detective, Credence has to change his way of seeing things: Graves is conducting an investigation on a series of murderers that might be done by someone Credence knows.Someone who, by his calculations, should have been dead for the last seven centuries.





	1. The Odd Eyes of the Prey

**Author's Note:**

> This is completely unbetaed and, since English is not my mother tongue, there might be some mistakes. If you find any, please, let me know by writing a comment; I'll correct it right away.  
> Yes, I know that this is probably the first story with a vampire Credence, but I had played with the idea for so much, before writing it, that I couldn't leave it just in form of idea. And it mostly started because I really can't see Colin as a vampire, even after watching 'Fright Night'.  
> So... read and enjoy, read and don't enjoy, you chose.
> 
> Also, I've never been to London, so most of the things on the city you're going to read in this chapter are based on the personal experience I don't have and on a few things I read on the internet.
> 
> My Tumblr: daffodilsandew.tumblr.com

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is completely unbetaed and, since English is not my mother tongue, there might be some mistakes. If you find any, please, let me know by writing a comment; I'll correct it right away.  
> Yes, I know that this is probably the first story with a vampire Credence, but I had played with the idea for so much, before writing it, that I couldn't leave it just in form of idea. And it mostly started because I really can't see Colin as a vampire, even after watching 'Fright Night'.  
> So... read and enjoy, read and don't enjoy, you chose.
> 
> Also, I've never been to London, so most of the things on the city you're going to read in this chapter are based on the personal experience I don't have and on a few things I read on the internet.

London stank, in October.

It was a quite curious fact, in Credence’s opinion, that a month of chilly temperatures could be accompanied by such unpleasant scents. Inhaling, Credence could smell the echoes of the summer – the rancid sweat of the tourists, the mix of perfumed shampoos and body washes, the rubber of the shoes that got consumed step after step – blended with the autumn scents, which were insanely sweet – hot cocoa, plums and different types of pudding. Of course there was the foul stench of the Tames and of the pollution too. It all seemed to grow from the ground in order to ferment in front of Credence’s nose.

Humans didn’t notice. After roaming the Earth for more than half of a millennium, Credence had learnt it well.

It wasn’t their fault, poor things: their senses weren’t developed enough; humans lived without any sense of smell and sight, deprived of strength and agility, little bodies that could break under the smallest pressure. Credence had seen many humans die because of a broken spine; his took only half an hour to heal.

Credence took the fur-hemmed hood of his jacket on his head and resumed walking with his hands in the pockets. He was hunting: his body needed blood and a good fuck would have been nice too. Sucking his prey’s cock after drinking his blood would have been amazing, even, but his stomach came first.

There wasn’t really a name for what Credence was: humans didn’t give names to species that only counted one member; however, the most correct word to describe what he was could have been ‘vampire’. Credence lived hoping that, if a scientist discovered what he really was and opened his body up and wrote a thesis about him, would eventually find a creative name to describe his nature; _vampire_ was such an abused concept.

Credence’s favourite hour to hunt was three of the morning: the smells of the day had settled in the air and all the human scents resulted clearer for his nose. Furthermore, he enjoyed entering in people’s houses and flats, rummaging through their lives as they slept, easy preys who would think it had all been a dream.

He was walking in a nice suburb were, on both sides of the street, there were welcoming terraced houses with gardens as big as tissues dotted with dying flowers.

No human smell captured his attention, so he kept going, strolling with no rush.

In front of a red house, he sniffed just the odour he was searching for and stopped on his tracks; it was cheap body wash and shampoo, a light night sweat, aftershave that, miraculously, didn’t smell like a pine grove. No cologne, no perfume. A bit of talcum deodorant and minty toothpaste but that was it, nothing more tried to cover the smell of the human.

It was lovely to say the least.

Standing still on the sidewalk, a street light right above his head, Credence inhaled deeply a second time.

Nose up in the air, eyes slightly disclosed, Credence licked his lips as he felt his chest and stomach grow tighter around the bones. His mouth was already watering, saliva pooling on his tongue and around his teeth.

He took his hands out of the pockets and stretched his neck, his whole body preparing so he could follow the track. Credence could feel his muscles warming up.

Two steps and he was running, feet that barely met the ground. Years of hunting made him a perfect bloodhound, he had never lost his prey in centuries and even by walking he would get to him, but he was _so_ hungry…

The sequence of coloured, terraced houses ended.

A dog was barking somewhere behind Credence’s shoulders.

The track had been pushed to his nose by the wind, there was no other reason for the rather interesting path it followed; Credence found himself in a park and then into deserted streets where the only building were B&Bs, flat blocks and hotels.

Soles slipping on the weirdly slick concrete, Credence never stopped running. He could move three times faster than any normal human being and his lungs could resist the effort of a Marathon without problems, rushing through London without taking a break was a joke, for him.

With a simple jump, Credence landed on the railing of a balcony on the second floor of a hotel. A terrible stench of bitter tap beer came from the building, but all the lights were out and, by what Credence could hear, the people inside of it were asleep.

Three more jumps, balcony to balcony, and Credence was on the roof. There, his track was clearer, not suffocated anymore by the smell of dog urine that permeated the air next to the building’s first floor.

Standing on the slick shingles, Credence calculated how far his prey could be. The wind was blowing towards East, pushing everything to the right, and the track seemed to come from Northwest. Inhaling again, Credence felt the faint aroma of the blood of his prey on his tongue. His prey wasn’t wounded: it was old blood, probably a scab.

If his nose was right, and it usually was, the building where his prey was sleeping was a five floors one half a mile far from him. In the shadows of the night, Credence could see it had only a terrace and a spruce had grown in the garden in front of it, covering almost completely its left side.

Humans had began live stocking animals because they didn’t have the right senses to hunt; if they couldn’t see every detail of what was happening a mile from them, how could they expect to hunt down wolves and creatures who could see and hear them within miles? And didn’t have any type of night vision, which was essential.

Another sniff, just to be completely sure to be following the right path, and Credence jumped. As he was in mid-air, hurling to the next roof of his route to the prey, a welcomed pressure pushed on his sternum.

When his feet touched the shingles, he was the only one who would have been able to hear the sound of it. Of course he weighted like a human being and his body was made of muscles and bones, but he had learned, in the centuries, to be silent as a cat.

Keep it silent, and the prey won’t run.

Roof to roof, balcony to balcony, Credence finally landed on a thick branch of the spruce. Not a single drop of sweat had fallen from his forehead. His muscles were pleasurably warm.

Sitting on the balls of his feet on the branch, he could watch into the prey’s flat. Now that he was so close, Credence could say that the prey was a male without doubt. A grown man, to be more precise. No child or teenager slept there.

However, being on the branch permitted him to only watch what seemed to be a rather bare living room.

Credence spat again; now that his mouth was watering so much, he felt the urge to keep spitting. He heard the drop of saliva hit the ground.

Moving swiftly, Credence reached another branch and then another and, from there, extended his arm to reach the half wall of the terrace. He just hopped and there he was, on the terrace of his prey’s house.

The sliding door that lead inside was open by half a inch and the incredibly appetizing smell of his prey came from there.

Credence took his mud-soiled boots off and left them next to the door.

He may have been a monster who entered people’s house to drink blood from their veins, but he could still be well mannered.

Credence made the door slide, then entered and closed it behind his back.

The flat was a rental one: there weren’t traces of personality in the living room connected with the small kitchen and the prey’s smell lingered there only because he was there too; the house wasn’t impregnated with it. The furnishing of the flat was boring: a blue sofa behind a wooden coffee table and a small TV, a round table with two chairs that looked at least ten years old and were consumed by the use, a kitchen which buzzing fridge had been bought probably in the Nineties. Everything was grey and blue and he was sure that, if he opened the drawer with the cutlery, he would find two of everything and nothing else.

It was an incredibly sad place to live in, even for a short period.

In a corner of the living room there was what seemed to be a desk – without chair – and, on top of it, the prey had put his neatly folded clothes, wallet and a plane ticket. On the side of the entrance door there was a closed luggage, ready to be taken away.

Credence took off his jacket and placed it on the grey sofa before opening the only door that could be opened and finding himself in front of his prey.

The entire bedroom was soaked with the smell of his prey, making his mouth water. With the tip of his tongue, Credence felt his canines as they started growing. His stomach tightened further.

There wasn’t much that Credence could do beside than kneeling on the queen-size bed, at the feet of the man.

A stinging smell of gunpowder filled the entire area next to the bedside table. The man kept a gun into the first drawer.

The room was lightened by the pale moonlight, but Credence didn’t need light to see clearly.

That night’s prey was lovely for sure: in his early forties, the man had thick eyebrows and strong features; his skin was smooth but – between his eyebrows and on the sides of his mouth – it was wrinkled by expression lines. A long, superficial scab adorned his right cheekbone. Credence liked his hair most: stylised in an undercut that showed the grey hair on his temples.

Tucked under a blue blanket, the man’s body was slim and well muscled. The white tank top he wore showed his clavicles and large shoulders.

Credence didn’t bite him right away: he needed to check the prey’s heart, before. He wouldn’t be new to homicide: in seven centuries on Earth he had to learn how to kill, but killing his prey – especially if handsome like the man he was watching in that moment – wasn’t in his style.

The prey’s heartbeat was consistent and each beat was strong and fierce. The man seemed to be affected by a slight heart murmur, but nothing that could get him killed if Credence took too much from him.

Credence bended his head down, right next to the man’s exposed neck, and sniffed deeply. If only the man wasn’t sleeping… Credence could barely resist the urge to lick the bared skin. Drinking blood was an arousing experience for both him and his prey – Credence was well aware that most of the lovers he had in his life wanted him just because of the sexual arousal that drinking blood provided.

Credence’s jaw sprung, his teeth closed on the man’s neck and blood filled his mouth. With a hand on the man’s sturdy chest and the other on the mattress, Credence sucked with passion and swallowed. The man’s blood was delicious; by far the better Credence had tasted that year.

His eyes rolled to the back of his head as he sank his teeth deeper in the flesh.

Credence could feel his cock hardening in his jeans.

The man’s heartbeat increased as he awakened. “What… what the fuck…?”

American with a slight Irish accent, how nice.

As Credence detached himself from the man’s neck and backed away to sit with his legs on the side, the prey moved away from him, grasping the sheets and trying to reach the bedside table. His eyes – of a nice dark brown – were widened and his eyebrows raised so high that they seemed capable of reaching the hair line.

Credence pressed gently the hand he had put on the man’s chest before to remind him that, if he tried to move, he would be there to catch him.

Credence licked his lower lip to catch the drop of blood lingering there. He swallowed it and smiled at the man, showing him his fangs. Credence perfectly knew that his young boy charm would struck the prey and, even if he didn’t like that particular allure, Credence knew he was pretty. Barely in his twenties, he had dark, curly hair that kissed his sharp jaw and contrasted with the paleness of his skin.

Men liked him because he seemed to be a doll made of fine china, a fragile little thing they could play with. Usually, they liked to spoil him too, dressing him in fine clothes and make him shine with jewels.

The prey he had in his hands had the honour to see him with his canines out and red lips too.

A drop of blood trickled down his chin and fell on his white sweater. The prey’s eyes followed the whole movement and seemed to be mesmerized by the dark stain on the jumper.

Credence waited for him.

The man adjusted his weight on his elbows, body still attracted by the drawer with the gun. Those beautiful dark eyes were still wide open, pupils enlarging and shrinking. His breath escaped his mouth in shagged puffs.

“I’m Credence” Credence presented himself. “I’m here for a favour.”

The man looked around himself, as if he wanted to check if he was in the right room. His fingers entangled with the sheets and knuckles white.

“A favour?”

Credence smiled sweetly, showing the prey all his boyish charm. “Yes, it’s all what I need.”

Credence was staring at him right in the eyes, just like how he did with his other preys. “I really need to feed and you taste so good… please, let me feed from you” he pleaded.

In the Fourteenth century, when he was still a rather young creature – he had lived only for two hundred years, Credence had to escape from Spain because he had killed a nobleman in a too exposed homicide. On horseback, Credence had travelled from Granada to the Valley of the Nile. When he arrived to the first Egyptian city he saw, he was completely drained of any energy: his only nourishment had been the blood of unwilling peasants who fought him in any way before Credence could snap their necks and feed. Luckily, he looked weird enough that the daughter of a noble decided to have him as an exotic pet to show around and take care of. She offered him her blood every night and, later on and with the help of one of her teachers, she had taught him the art of hypnotism because she thought it could be useful.

In the following five centuries, Credence had learnt how to make a good use of it without the use of pendulums and incenses. Now, with his sweetest tone and an imploring gaze, Credence was able to bend any person under his control.

Even the thickest mind couldn’t escape his will.

The man seemed to think about it, brow knitting. His breath had evened out but his heartbeat was still agitated.

The wait would be long and Credence knew when to be patience; he let his body slid on the bed, lazily, until one of his feet was out of the bed and his head on the man’s chest. Credence adjusted both his hands under his own chin and shoulders hunched together.

The man was thinking, Credence could almost see his thoughts running in his brain at a wild pace through his eyes.

The next move was the prey’s: Credence knew for experience that putting too much pressure on someone’s mind could completely mush his or her brain, he didn’t want to outdo. And, although the man wasn’t looking at him, he was sure that he was thinking about the favour.

While waiting, Credence observed the man’s eyes. There was something odd about them.

In his long life, Credence had known a few people who weren’t human.

Not monsters like him, of course, but people who could read minds, see the future, talk with the dead. In almost eight centuries of life, Credence had met only a handful of those individuals and they all had gone willingly to him, smiles on their faces. They had recognized him as a friend they could trust.

When Credence had met the first one, a girl named Purity who read the future into the fire ashes for a quarter of penny, he had been stunned by her eyes; for humans, probably, their eyes were just like the others, but for him… the pupils of those people seemed to attract all the light around them just to swallow it, making it fall into a well were it could not get out.

It was frightening.

And it made Credence wonder: were his eyes like that too? In decades, he had never noticed anything particularly off with his face. The same night he had met Purity, he had spent hours and hours inspecting himself in the mirror that a golden plate provided.

The man’s eyes weren’t like that; his pupils didn’t absorb all the light without reflecting it, but something… Credence couldn’t place his fingers on it.

“Graves” the man – Graves – grumbled, voice still raspy from sleep. “My name is Graves.”

Credence nodded with his cheek still pressed against Graves’ stomach. “I’m Credence.”

Credence didn’t move further: if Graves wanted him to do something, then he would have told. Watching him in the eyes, before, he had created a mechanism that would begin moving soon. It was all a matter of time.

In Credence’s life everything was a matter of time.

However, he couldn’t stop himself: “Graves”, Credence whined hoping to speed things up, since the bite wound on Graves’ neck was still open and bleeding. A trickle of blood was flowing into the hollow of his collarbone. “Graves, I’m _really_ hungry… can I feed from you?”

Those words made the mechanism begin their work: Graves broke down and looked at him with those strange, brown eyes. A smirk stretched his thin lips.

Graves’ hand cupped the back of Credence’s neck; the man was now balancing his upper body’s weight on one elbow alone. His head was leant against the wooden headboard. With a shiver, Credence noticed that Graves’ fingers were slowly caressing his hair, digits slowly combing the soft locks in order to undo the knots in them.

It was very rare, that a prey of his treated him in such way.

He had many lovers, in his life, and they all had died. Some of old age, some of illnesses no one knew how to cure, some because of an accident. And he had felt so useless, as he watched them all grow old or sweat in their beds with a sick colour to their faces or heard the snap of their broken bones and the rush of the blood out of their veins.

Something in his chest felt suddenly warm, throbbing. It had been a long time, since someone used so much care while touching him. Feeling tender touches on his body again made him want to cry.

Credence had almost forgotten his hunger, the blood spilling from Graves’ neck, the small pool of it in the hollow of his clavicles, his weird eyes.

And he smiled at Graves, showed him his inch long fangs and how they shined in all their glory.

The prey was bewitched by them and Credence perfectly knew why. Graves was a down to Earth man who didn’t believe in magical creatures. Imagining him as a child wasn’t hard: Credence could clearly see a frowning child who didn’t believe in Santa Claus and who always knew that, eventually, everybody dies.

Credence would be the first person capable of proving him otherwise.

“Do you really want to feed from me?” asked Graves, fingertips still stroking Credence’s scalp.

Credence nodded. “I promise I won’t hurt you nor kill you.”

Graves, after letting his gaze wander around the room, nodded. “It’s all a dream, isn’t it?”

“If you’d like me to turn it into a dream, then it will be a dream.”

“What if I want to know if it’s real?”

“I can’t let you, I’m sorry.”

For every human prey he found, there were two hypnotising sessions. The first one was to let the prey understand what was happening: if they perfectly understood what Credence was, then they would have taken the decision to feed him by themselves. His boyish look always helped him there. The second one was for his own protection: he couldn’t let humans go around and spread the word that a vampire – _monster –_ bit them in their sleep. It would be damaging for the preys too. So he always asked them how to raise the memory of him. Some of them told him to completely erase that experience from their minds, some others asked him to remember everything as a dream.

Credence understood both these wishes, and made them both true.

The only he couldn’t satisfy were the ones who asked him to do nothing to alter the memory.

Graves nodded again, gaze staring the ceiling. “You said you were hungry…”

“Very much so, yes.”

The man still wasn’t completely convinced, Credence could say it just by looking at him, but Graves moved against the headboard to sit in a more comfortable position. The blood on the clavicles trickled on his tank top in a long, dark and perfumed torrent.

Credence’s head slipped down Graves stomach and ended on his thighs, nose pressed against the man’s lower abdomen.

Then, with a hand, Graves gestured him to serve himself.

Credence got up by pushing his feet against the mattress and by supporting himself with a hand. In a matter of nanoseconds, he was comfortably sitting on Graves’ lap, mouth close to the wound again. Adjusting himself as the best he could, Credence put a hand on the back of Graves’ neck and the other on his bicep.

Saliva gushed out of the underside of his tongue.

He pressed his closed lips against the bite and listened to Graves. The man wasn’t doing anything in particular: he was only breathing, hands still trying to find a place to stay, but the sounds he made had something thrilling in them. Credence wanted to be able to listen to him all night.

Ever so slowly, Credence attached his mouth to the open wound. His fangs sank into the markings they left before.

A strangled, aroused moan escaped from Graves’ lips. Ragged and humid breaths warmed Credence’s ear, moved strands of his unruly hair.

Credence sighed; there was something completely intimate, in his prey’s puffs of breath on the side of his face.

He drank with his arms wrapped around Graves’ neck, holding him tight.

There was something comforting, in the heartbeat of the man. And Graves seemed to feel it too, because he put both his hands on Credence’s lower back, digits playing with the hem of the sweater.

When he felt his lips against the side of his face, Credence stilled.

The kiss Graves pressed next to his earlobe was soft, sweet. And then, the prey nuzzled his nose against said earlobe, trying to press into him with all his body. Under his ass, Credence could clearly feel Graves’ cock becoming rigid in his joggers, but the man didn’t try even once to grind against him.

Credence sighed, happy.

Again, Graves was demonstrating he wasn’t one of Credence’s preys. He was aroused, that was sure, but he wasn’t trying to put his hands were they didn’t belong. He was searching consent, before moving.

Usually his preys tried too hard to act like the predator: they put their hands were they shouldn’t have put them and stroked places Credence didn’t want to have stroked. A few of them were so confident they tried to force themselves on Credence. In all response, Credence broke their bones and then, after hours of suffering, killed them off. If they tried to impose themselves on a supernatural creature who was much stronger than them, he didn’t want to know what they could do to _normal_ people.

Graves kissed him again, this second time on the jaw.

By then, Graves seemed to be achingly hard.

Credence smiled against the open wound, lower lip now completely painted red, and let his tongue dart out of his mouth, cleaning the blood around the bite. With his fangs still penetrating the tender flesh, Credence opened his jaw and kissed Graves’ neck; he did it slowly, like how he would have kissed the mouth of a lover.

Graves, under him, whined.

Credence could feel the resistance he was putting against his instincts. The man didn’t want to grind against him nor buck up.

And he was moaning so deliciously Credence remembered his thoughts about sucking cocks, other than blood. Graves appeared to be the right partner for that night: completely turned into lust but still respectful of him.

Credence detached his mouth from his meal and put his wet lips against Graves’ ear. “You can fuck me, you want to.”

The man shuddered, breath stopping briskly in his throat and hands stilling on Credence’s small back.

Pleased by such reaction, Credence lowered his head and put his teeth in the man’s neck to get a few more sips. Then, his meal would have been officially finished and he could give all his attention to Graves.

What happened next wasn’t really what he was expecting.

Graves placed his hands on Credence’s hips and used them to _throw_ him on the other side of the bed.

His fangs tore the skin of the man’s throat apart.

The strong smell of blood filled the room as a gush of it flowed from the ripped flesh. While falling on the mattress – his head next to the edge of the feet side of the bed – Credence saw five drops of blood fly across the room to land on the wall, shining red spots against the white paint.

Graves had rose to his knees and looked wholly unaware of what had just happened to him. The little, red torrent had stained part of the tank top and had glided down his right arm. An enlarging puddle was forming on the bed sheets.

The man was staring at him with eyes dark with lust and Credence was doing his best to keep himself from laughing.

That was one of the _stupidest_ moves he had _ever_ seen.

Graves was bleeding to death and in a matter of seconds he would faint. Credence had to cure him quickly, otherwise the man would really die that night.

His own arousal was long forgotten, substituted by amusement and preoccupation.

As he predicted, Graves’ odd eyes rolled in his skull and the man fainted, ending up on Credence. His weight pushed him flat against the mattress but, since Credence was much stronger than any human being, it was no bother for him to push Graves off.

He sat up.

Graves’ pulse was weak, not as the noise produced by the wings of a butterfly, but very close. His pupils were moving under the eyelids frantically, as if he was having a nightmare. His black hair had fallen on his face.

Credence rolled him on his back, before opening his own wrist with one of his fangs.

His blood, he had discovered a couple of decades after he became the monster he was, had curative properties: with a few drops on the offended points, it could close deep wounds and, if fed to an injured human, cure all the damages in his body.

Bones, cartilage, organs; everything could go back in its rightful place.

Of course, until the human was alive.

Credence pressed his bleeding wrist on the haemorrhaging wound on Graves’ throat and then to his lips, letting some droplets slid in his disclosed mouth. In a matter of seconds, Credence’s wrist had naturally healed.

Surprised, Credence watched Graves’ skin close on the wounds and heart his heartbeat back to strong; it was the first time he saw someone heal so quickly.

It surely had something to do with the fact that his eyes were the ones of nobody else.

He had to stay and not only to clean up that night’s mess or to make Graves think it all had been a dream. He had to stay to find out what wasn’t human in Graves.

And, since Graves was sleeping, he could let himself take some rest too.

After shaking his jeans off of his legs, Credence curled up on the bed and, with his head on Graves’ chest, fell asleep.

 


	2. Poems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of violence and blood, references to past abuses and triggering words.  
> Plus, the chapter is long. Very long. Like... 6800 and something words. So... be aware of what you're going to read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After I don't know how much time, I've finally updated!  
> I've gotta say, I'm not very satisfied with this chapter, but it went like this... next time it'll be better.  
> I hope you'll enjoy the gratuitous violence, at least.  
> Next chapter, I promise, the relationship between the two of them will be explored more. This was more like a massively long chapter of explenations.
> 
> Oh, if you're actually curious to see Graves' house, the first line of the story is actually a link to go see the photos from which I took inspiration. I would have put them here but since an idiot who doesn't know how to use a computer they better stay there.  
> By the way, I've never been in Montgomery, I don't know how it is so... you know... don't get offended if the city's not like that.
> 
> As for the first chapter, please let me know if there are mistakes!

[Link to Percival Graves house ](http://www.langhe.property/304-rare-liberty-villa-for-sale-piedmont-italy.html)

 

Gunpowder smell.

The cold press of metal against his forehead.

The only sounds he could hear, beside the background noise coming from the streets, were the harsh breaths of Graves and his wildly beating heart.

When Credence opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was that it was still the middle of the night.

The second was the barrel of a gun – the one that was hidden in the bedside drawer, he imagines – pressed between his eyebrows.

The third was Graves; the man had all his muscles tensed, his weird eyes squinted to see into the barely there light of the moonlight and teeth gritted. His whole body was shaking with fear and the stinging scents of sweat and blood were all around him.

Credence kept still.

He had survived to all kinds of injuries – from broken spines to deep stabbing wounds – but he was fairly sure that a bullet right in the brain could kill him. He had been wounded in the head only once, in his life, and it had been a quite horrific experience: a piece of glass of a windshield had caught him in the middle of the forehead, almost splitting his skull in half. In order to recover from such injury, his body had taken almost a week and, when Credence had woken up, he had found himself in a coffin under the ground. He had to escape using his nails.

If a piece of glass that didn’t manage to reach his brain had caused so much trouble, he imagined that a bullet right in the middle of his skull could be enough to kill him.

«What kind of _monster_ are you and what the fuck did you do to me?» questioned Graves, a drop of sweat sliding down his left temple.

Poor thing.

However, the fourth point caught Credence off of guard, when he realized it: Graves wasn’t under the effect of his hypnotisation anymore. And, thinking about what happened no more than thirty minutes before, Credence wondered if he _ever_ had been.

Recollecting all his memories about the ‘conversation’ with Graves, his gaze fixed into the man’s eyes, he couldn’t really find the moment in which the prey’s pupils had dilated nor when his heartbeat got slower. In fact, there weren’t those moments _at all_.

Graves had _never_ been under his power.

It had never happened in his life!

“Get this thing out of my face” Credence said slowly.

Graves wasn’t human. There were little chances he had powers, but surely he couldn’t be considered normal.

“And I’ll explain everything.”

It would be nice, talking to a non-human, for once.

Well, if he didn’t end up dead on that little, sad bed that very night, of course.

Graves didn’t even pretend to think about it: he just shoved the barrel of the gun against Credence’s forehead with more strength, making his head press against the mattress.

“Why should I let you go? So you can bite me again, you _freak?_ ”

The last word echoed in Credence’s ears.

 

 _“You sick_ freak. _”_

_Credence threw up in his own lap. All what hit his shivering legs was a mixture of dirty water, blood, pieces of his last meal at the orphanage and herbs the man had fed him with._

_He was crying, sobbing so hard his throat hurt. Fat tears were rolling down his cheeks to fall on his thighs, ending up in his own vomit._

_The stench made his stomach lurch again but, as his mouth filled a second time with sour saliva, he knew he wouldn’t be able to throw up anything more: water and herbs were the last things he had swallowed in days._

_Credence sobbed harder._

_The man grabbed him by the hair and pulled them up and then backwards, so that their eyes could meet._

_Credence didn’t want to face the man._

_“Look at me, creature.”_

_Credence shut his eyes._

_He didn’t want to see, just crawl in a corner and die there._

_The man’s voice was always calm and polite, the tone almost soothing. He sounded like he was completely pleased with himself and with the whole situation, no matter in which condition Credence was or if the concoction he had been given had worked._

_“Open your eyes, little monster” the man instructed._

_Credence didn’t obey, so the man pulled his hair with more strength, making him scream in pain._

_He couldn’t stop crying. Snot was running down his nose into his mouth._

_“I said you have to open your eyes.”_

_Credence didn’t listen; all his thoughts were for the girls he had helped out, back at the orphanage. If he thought of them, then the pain would numb and the man disappear._

_“Very well, then” the man said letting his hair go._

_Credence sniffed and pressed his chin against his naked shoulder. Maybe, if he tried to hide, to make himself smaller, the man would eventually let him go._

_He heard footsteps and then the rustling of clothing, the creaking sound of a belt being stretched filled the atmosphere._

_Not once, though, he opened his eyes. He didn’t want to see. It was all a nightmare and when he would open his eyes, he would still be at the orphanage, pressed between two other boys on a too small bed._

_“Now now.” The man was smirking, Credence could hear it in his voice. “Since you’re a little, disobeying freak, I have to make sure you’ll learn your lesson.” The leather belt creaked again. “I’ll punish you every time you fight the medicine I give you. It doesn’t matter if it’s by throwing it up or spitting it: every time you don’t swallow and, therefore, don’t get better, I’ll punish you. Did I make myself clear?”_

_Credence nodded frantically, hair flopping on his forehead._

_The flowing sound Credence heard was the belt whipping the air before hitting his lips._

Credence couldn’t breathe.

The entire weight of the man was pressing on his chest, his ribs bending, ready to punch holes into his water filled lungs.

When he blinked, instead of the usual darkness behind his eyelids, he saw the man.

And Graves was still pressing that goddammit gun against his forehead.

Lungs aching and heart still beating too hard in his ribcage, Credence decided that he had let that situation be dragged for too long.

“You let me go _now_ and _maybe_ I won’t kill you right away.” His voice was just a low whisper; the words were coming from his mouth through gritted teeth.

All his muscles were ready to jump and break all the bones in Graves’ body. Credence could feel his fangs descending from his gum. Everything in him wanted to tear Graves into pieces so little and devastated no one would have been able to reconstruct his body.

Of course he wouldn’t do such thing: he needed to find out what made Graves different from him and all the other non-humans he had met; however, the thought of spilling blood and ripping muscles from bones and nerves had its unique appeal. Credence had never said he would be the good guy of the story, after all.

Graves shivered but kept the gun aimed between Credence’s eyebrows.

Very well, then.

With a swift movement of his right hand, Credence hit with his palm Graves’ elbow. The blow had been too much, for the bones and cartilage and they both gave in, breaking with a satisfying brittle sound.

Before Graves could open his mouth to scream, Credence detangled his right leg from the man’s and used his knee to hit him in the flank.

The blow wasn’t as strong as Credence wanted it to be, but it had been enough to throw Graves off of the bed.

His body thumped against the floor and the gun clattered against the baseboard of the wall.

Satisfied, ears filled with the low, pained laments coming from Graves’ throat, Credence rolled on his stomach and sat on his knees, eyes looking for his jeans. He wouldn’t be really credible, if he threatened Graves – a man who slept with a gun in the bedside table – while wearing a stained white sweater, boxer briefs and socks. Well, surely Graves would be too afraid of him to really mind what he was wearing, but it was a matter of principles.

He found them on the floor on the opposite side of the bed where Graves was.

Credence put his feet on the floor, the carpet under his soles consumed and quite scratchy, and got up. He picked up his jeans and put them on, jumping around a little because they got stuck on his heels.

At every jump, Graves whined.

Shame was now filling Credence’s chest and those pained laments weren’t satisfying to hear anymore. The sudden panic and rage that had caught him when he’d been called ‘freak’ were gone, stored in the back of his mind with all the last memories of his human life.

Nibbling at his lower lip, Credence took off the sweater. The shirt underneath it had somehow remained spotless.

Carefully to not make loud noises, Credence stepped next to Graves.

The man had moved to lay on his flank, right arm protecting the injured one. His dark eyes were swollen with tears but none had fallen on his cheek. However, his stern face was completely contracted and blotchy.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you” Credence said slowly as if he was talking to a child. He sat with his back sustained by the wall. “But I did, and I’m very sorry for it.”

A bruise would bloom on the man’s nose bridge by the next day’s noon. A trickle of blood was running down his nostril. Apparently, Graves had fallen right on his face.

He spitted and then sniffled, a drop of watery snot dandling from the unwounded nostril. “You… you didn’t answer my question.”

Graves wasn’t afraid of dying, Credence noticed. He still talked, even through trembling words, like when he had control of the situation. It seemed that he didn’t care about his broken arm, nor about his bleeding nose. The trembling and tears were just the result of the adrenaline wearing off and, of course, of the pain.

“I guess you could say I’m a vampire without being completely wrong because” he vaguely gesticulated in the direction of his mouth, “of the fangs and the fact that I drank your blood, but I don’t like that term. It’s overused.”

“You’re a monster who tried to kill me. Twice.” Graves pointed out.

“It was just self-defence: you were threatening me, I protected myself. The first time I was just eating. I would do no harm to you for no reason.”

“Bullshits.”

Credence rolled his eyes but let Graves curse. It was no problem being called a liar, especially by a wounded human. Humans in such conditions could completely lose their good judgment.

“Listen, you aren’t human either so you _really_ should stop treating me with excessive sarcasm before you insult yourself without even knowing.” He adjusted his leg’s position, pressing a knee on the ground. “I’ll help you discover what yours powers are and what they can do, that you like it or not.”

Graves smirked. “I doubt that with the broken arm you gave me I’ll be capable of anything.” He looked at his hand, which rested limp against the floor, fingers marked with the red burns left by the gun when it had escaped from his hold.

“No need to cry over it: I can cure you.”

“Can you, now?”

“Always could.”

Credence went to his feet and padded to the kitchen.

He had seen it right, the night before: Graves was one of those men who fought all what they couldn’t understand with any medium they had. In Graves’ case, it seemed that sarcasm was the mean he liked most.

In the kitchen, he found a glass in a cupboard and a knife in the cutlery drawer.

In order to cure Graves, Credence had to make him drink his blood but, being the man awake, he couldn’t just stuff his bleeding wrist into his mouth and expect him to drink everything without throwing up or fighting, ending up more injured than before. So, even if it was far less effective than making him drink directly from the source, Credence had another method with which he could cure Graves.

Using the tip of the knife, Credence made a clean and deep cut on his wrist. Think globs of blood spilled from it and ended up in the glass. The wound wasn’t particularly hurtful; it was barely a scratch.

A finger of blood filled the bottom of the glass before the his wound naturally healed.

Humans usually needed at least a triplicated quantity of blood, to heal from broken bones. However, since Graves wasn’t completely human – or maybe anything but human – he would have probably needed less of it.

It was good economy, after all.

Credence began humming a slow tune while licking his own blood off of his wrist. In centuries of life, Credence had never discovered which were the words or who was the author; the notes of the melody were born with him and all the other non-humans recognized them and some of them hummed with him. Hopefully, Graves too would recognize the tune.

As he filled the glass with tap water, his eyes lazily following the delicate swirls the blood drew in the water before mixing with it and making it of a soft shade of pink, he heard a noise coming from the bedroom.

Of course Graves the Sarcastic Fighter wasn’t going to surrender so easily.

Credence rolled his eyes once again. He would have enjoyed the match – if Graves was anything like Credence had imagined him, then the man would have been the perfect rival for him – if he wasn’t so annoyed and tired. He just wanted to go back to his flat, curl up in his old furs and sleep for the rest of the night – and _maybe_ call it a day and sleep until the following night.

Credence put the blood and water filled glass in the sink and turned, angles of his lips turned up what could have been interpreted as a smile and turned.

Graves was standing in the doorway, clothes sticking to his pale skin and the broken arm resting completely link against his flank – at every slight movement of it, the man winced a little. The healthy one was extended in front of his distressed face and his hand held the gun, barrel pointed at him.

Graves pressed his finger against the trigger.

Credence decided it was not the right occasion to dodge the bullet; there was nothing that scared humans more than watching a mortal wound heal in front of their eyes.

The bullet breached the flesh under his sternum, grazed the liver and there, in the middle of the organ, ended its journey.

The pain bloomed ever so slowly, announcing itself with light pulses in the area where the bullet sat. With a rhythm that resembled the one of a waltz he had danced in Vienna, the ache rose and burned, his tissues trying to heal around the projectile but finding themselves incapable of it.

Graves, still in the doorway, was watching the oozing lesion with his jaw slack open. His thick eyebrows seemed to reach the hairline.

Credence, restraining his smile at such reaction, let two fingers slide into the wound and grasp around the bullet to take it out. With index and middle fingers dripping with his own blood, Credence tossed the projectile on the floor and cleaned his digits on the already soaked shirtfront.

At that, Graves’ eyebrows went down, almost covering his eyes.

Then, the worse part of the healing process kicked in: his cells reproduced themselves in order to fix what had been damaged and it fucking _burned_. A wave of nausea washed over his stomach and settled in his throat.

It all lasted no longer than five seconds but, at the end of the process, Credence had been drained of a big part of his energy.

He slumped against the counter.

Graves was still staring at him with his mouth wide open.

“Close your mouth” Credence said using his fingers to push back his hair from his forehead, “or you’ll eat flies.”

On the first floor, someone had opened the door of a flat and was quickly walking upstairs. Of course, the noise of the shot would wake someone.

Graves sealed his lips before winching and dropping the gun; with his now free hand, he took hold of the broken arm again, fingers pressing here and there. A single tear streamed across his face.

Credence sighed and got up, abdomen not aching anymore. He took the glass out of the sink and slowly got closer to Graves. His intention was to make the man drink everything up and heal before the person – a woman, probably – that was climbing the stairs to the flat they were in could show up; having Graves moan in pain while he hypnotized the person would be a distraction for them both.

“Drink this” Credence took hold of Graves’ healthy hand and wrapped his fingers around the glass. “You’ll feel better,” he glanced at the man’s crushed elbow, “and the bone will heal.”

Graves looked at him, then at the glass and, then again, at him. Credence was a head shorter than Graves and the man, to look at him, had to bend his neck as if he was trying to stare a little kid in the eyes. The man seemed to realize it only in that moment.

Credence let a content smile on his lips: “Drink.”

“In one go, I suppose.”

“You won’t be able to throw up but… yes, swallow everything in one go.”

Graves drank bringing his head back but keeping his eyes on Credence, brow furrowed. His grey hair sparkled in the moonlight.

As the man swallowed the last sip, the person knocked at the door.

Before Graves could move, Credence was already with his hand on the doorknob.

With the corner of his eye, he saw the man start squirming. Bones healing never gave a nice feeling. “You should lay down.”

Graves nodded, probably already feeling his elbow turn back to solid. “We’re gonna talk about this.” He took a breath and moved his fingers. “Whatever this shit is.”

Once the man disappeared into the bedroom – and laid on the bed again, judging by the noise of the sheets getting crumpled, Credence opened the door.

The person on the landing was a very long necked, blonde haired, nose-upturned woman. She was wrapped up in a faded pink nightgown and wore consumed slippers decorated with smiling monkey at her feet. All around her, there was a cloud of foul air and of a lavender perfume that went out of production back in the Eighties.

Credence flashed her with a smile before she could comprehend that the spots and stains on his shirt weren’t part of the design. He looked at her right into the eyes, ready to hypnotize her.

“I heard a noise” she said moving her head left and right to watch inside of the flat. Credence’s eyes stole her attention from searching for evidences of violence inside of the living room.

Her lips were a thin, slightly turned towards right, line. “And who are you?”

“I’m Graves’ friend” a flashing smile, words spoken softly. The London accent he had learnt to speak with filled his voice. “He told me he was in the City for a few days but I didn’t manage to come before because, you know” he let out an embarrassed laugh, “we all have to work, don’t we? And the noise was probably just the tv. We fell asleep while watching it and the volume was just turned up a little too much.”

The woman’s brain was already under his power.

She smiled, completely convinced by what he had said. Her eyes were empty.

“Did you understand what I said?”

She nodded.

“So what will you say if one of the people who lives here complains?”

“It was just the tv” her tone was flat, her head was slightly turned backwards. “Mister Graves had a friend over and they watched the tv until they fell asleep and they didn’t notice that the volume was raised too high because they were sleeping.”

Credence rewarded her with a light pat on the cheek. “Good girl. Now, you should _really_ go to bed and sleep, don’t you think? Tomorrow will be a busy day.”

She nodded and turned.

As Credence observed her as she went down the first flight of stairs, something else came to his mind. “There might be a few ruined furniture pieces and some painting work to do. You’ll do it without complaining or calling the police. Did I made myself clear?”

The woman nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Credence observed her as she descended the second flight of stairs, nightgown sweeping the steps behind her, and disappeared from his sight.

He kept his position in the threshold, one ear listening to the steps of the woman, the other one listening to the sound of Graves’ bones regenerating.

Credence went back in.

In the bedroom, Graves was sitting in the middle of the bed with his eyes as open as his mouth. If Credence didn’t know humans so well, he might have feared his jaw to broke and drop.

The man was examining his arm with what seemed to be childish awe.

He raised his head, heart suddenly beating faster. “How did you…?”

“You saw me heal, you should have figured it out by now” Credence sat on the corner of the bed, leaving Graves space to breathe and think.

Graves sealed his lips and slowly nodded, gaze not really focused on anything.

Oh, poor thing, he was probably exhausted. Now that all their rage was gone, Credence wanted to pet him to sleep.

“How are you feeling?”

Graves thought about it, fingers opening and closing, tendons flexing and relaxing in his wrist. “Dizzy.”

“You didn’t feel a wave of pain or heat?”

Credence’s brows had risen; Graves was surprising him minute after minute: non-humans – and Credence himself – pained during the healing process. Credence could bear it fairly well, his strength had helped him getting used to it, but all the other non-humans broke into tears, screamed, kicked because the agony was unbearable to the point in which they would have preferred dying or healing by themselves.

“Dizzy” Graves repeated before shaking his shoulders. A strand of grey hair had stuck to his temple. “I’ve had worse, I suppose.”

“Yeah, probably… but it had never happened before.”

Even if it seemed more like a very slim chance, Credence started thinking Graves had been tortured, in his youth. The man didn’t show any scars on his face and arms, the skin of his feet was smooth too, but the clothes may have hidden some of them.

Non-humans weren’t so strong willed to be able to ignore the burning of the cells reconstructing the tissues in a matter of minutes. Ever.

Little time right after the beginning of the XX century, Credence had met the most famous Strongman in Ohio. He was the main attraction of _Mister Lackey’s Freak Show_ and people fought outside the circus tents to buy the ticket to see his performances.

Credence had seen Strongman perform while sitting in the front row benches. He could remember the hand of the man who had become his newest lover stroking the inside of his thigh, palm heavy on his flesh and fingers pressing on the seams of his trousers. However, even if Luther’s hand caressed his crotch too, Credence remembered he didn’t focus only a bit on him: his eyes and mind were completely for the man performing.

Strongman could lift weights that made the other men in the circus go pale and break solid wood beams with his bare hands.

Strongman had obviously been a non-human.

Credence had met him after the show; he had hypnotized Luther and left him sitting on a bench a few miles from _Mister Lackey’s Freak Show_ and went to talk to Strongman. Just like all the other non-humans had always done, the _freak_ had recognized him.

The two of them had spent the night talking but, when the first rays of the dusk had lighted the sky, a tragic incident had happened: a metal pole placed in the ground that should have sustained part of the tent only a pair of feet from them had crumbled down and completely crushed Strongman’s back. Credence had heard the bones break and the blood ooze out the internal wounds.

Credence had given him his blood, but the man – the strongest man Earth had ever seen beside Credence – had started crying in pain, screaming, clinging to Credence’s body and pleading him to _just kill him_.

Now, almost 130 years later, Credence was sitting with a man who felt _dizzy_ after getting his entire arm reconstructed in a matter of half a minute.

Graves shook his head. “I would like some… _clarifications_ about the whole vampire thing. And the non-human one. You dragged me into this shit, so you better have explanations.”

“Mh… let’s see” Credence pretended to think about the matter with the fingertip of his digit pressed against the angle of his mouth. Grave was giving him a scolding stare. “You’re not human. I’m not human. There are other non-humans out there. It seems like I’m the only one that is immortal. I’m seven hundred and something years old. You can’t kill me in any way. I can help you find out which is your power and then leave or stay with you, we’ll see how it goes. Do you want to know something else?”

Graves’ mind was working hard; he was processing all those information to bring them to reality. After all, Graves had seen with his own eyes that Credence wasn’t human.

Credence observed him, studied all his moves.

Now that he could examine those eyes from a very close distance, he could see that not even the last drop of blood, in Graves, was barely human.

After two minutes filled with silence, the man took a deep breath and moved towards Credence. “My name is Percival Graves and I’m a detective.”

Graves got off of the bed and started pacing in the bedroom.

“In three three weeks ago some cops found a corpse in Manhattan. The man had been killed as if the unsub wanted to recreate Mary Jane Kelly murder. And then the English police found the body of a woman, Kelly Falconer, who had been cut into pieces.”

“Let me guess: a reproduction of the murders of Catherine Eddowes.”

Graves nodded. “And the killer left poems next to the victims, both times. So we got called to work on the case but… we found nothing.”

So there was what Graves wanted from him: a helping hand in resolving the murderers. With Credence’s supernatural powers, Graves would be able to close the case in a snap of his fingers.

“Do you want me to be you assistant?”

That would be a _real_ hunt, something he hadn’t done in what felt like ages.

With the advent of advanced technology, he had gotten lazy: the more chances he had to be caught, the less he killed. Credence had said to himself that it was for the greater good: if he didn’t kill a man, then he wouldn’t have to kill all the policemen who came after him.

But now…

Oh, now he could feel the old excitement he had felt while hunting _not_ for nourishment. A blood-thirsty joy came to his throat.

He slowly licked his lips.

Kill in the name of the law; kill in the name of the greater good.

“What will I earn, if I help you?”

Graves stroked the back of his neck, fingers brushing the grey hair. “I’ll let you find my powers out.”

“And can I kill this person, when we find who it is?”

“Yes” Graves gave him a stern look. The man was serious, he didn’t mind killing someone who had murdered first. “Yes. And you can do it however you want.”

Credence jumped to his feet, ready to let Graves scribble on a piece of paper his address in New York and go to his flat to put his stuff into a luggage, when the detective stopped him.

“One more thing: you kill one of my cats and no matter how powerful you are, I’ll find a way to end your days.”

 

*

 

Two days after encountering Percival Graves, Credence took an airplane to New York with a faux leather rucksack filled with his new documents – all that said his name was Thomas Darnell, he was born in Plymouth and had just turned twenty-three – on his shoulder and two suitcases that had become heavy with clothes, shoes, jewellery and his furs, presents his Russian lover had gifted him with on the last Christmas of Elizaveta Petrovna’s reign.

Credence had always liked travelling; long hours on horseback, smelling the different scents of the world, trying new foods, admiring a different view every day.

It had changed during the last century: documents had become filled with magnets, little chips, stuff that had to be made by the hands of someone who played all day long with computers. So, now he had five people who worked for him and took care of such matters. New documents – credit cards, passports, IDs – and all the other questions that had to do with how the government controlled people’s belongings, they did it all.

At least, on the plane he had the pleasure to drink flutes of fine Champaign.

After the plane had landed at the J. F. Kennedy Airport, Credence took a cab and had to fight with the cabby two times. The first time because the man thought his suitcases wouldn’t fit into his car; the second because Montgomery was an hour and a half from New York City. Credence had solved the first situation by putting his things in the cab himself and the second by showing the cabby his brand new Visa Black Card.

The car trip had been boring: New York wasn’t like London, the stank of pollution covered all the other smells and the constant noise of thousands of people talking in the same moment was overlapped by the sound of car engines, construction sites sounds and the full package of noises that came with such a big city.

Sitting on the backseats, Credence’s consciousness had kept coming and going. His thought all came to him blurry, pictures he couldn’t focus on. With his head thrown back on the seat and face illuminated by the warm light of October’s sunset, Credence had reflected on Percival’s cats and on the bodies between a quick nap and the other.

He regained his senses only when they reached Montgomery and, since he didn’t like staying in a place without knowing how it was, he let the thoughts on the murderers aside and sat straight to watch out of the window.

Houses of bricks, little green gardens in front of them, a tree for every yard. The streets were rather clean and the people – mostly whites of middle age, Credence noticed – had those kind faces that always seemed to hide horrible secrets.

As the cab paraded in front of old ladies with bluish hair and leashed dogs, Credence analysed all the smells that came to his nose. The air wasn’t clean, but it wasn’t the mess he had smelt in New York – or London – either. However, he had to say that the yards, all so tended to, smelt incredibly blamelessly and the inhabitants seemed nice enough.

The cabby kept driving, the robotic voice of the GPS giving him indications that he followed without even thinking.

And they found themselves rather far from the nice blocks Credence had inspected.

In that zone of the city there were only abandoned buildings and the scent of rotting wood filled the air. The breaths of wind brought with them a smell that got more and more wild.

There, the city smelled like a forest and Credence couldn’t get enough of it.

Curiosity had taken over, now: he could feel his sternum throbbing at the idea of seeing where such a special non-human could live. Credence moved all around the backseats, looking out of the windows in the childish hope of seeing the house before the cabby just to have the satisfaction to be able to say “I saw it first”.

And he did.

As the cabby drove the car on a L shaped road whose concrete had turned into crumbles, the perfume of Graves’ skin hit Credence right in the middle of his brain.

“You sure this is the right place, kid?”

Credence nodded eagerly, almost bouncing up and down the seats.

On the right side of the road, hidden behind oaks and poplars whose leaves had turned orange and brown, Percival’s house sat behind a rather high wall of red bricks on which brambles and ivy had grown. On the shins that decorated the top of the wall, perched with their natural grace, five cats were staring at the cab.

It was just Credence’s luck that predators always liked him.

“I mean… you really sure this the place?” the cabby asked again, head turned towards Credence. The man’s eyes were lit with preoccupation.

“Yes, very sure” Credence answered with his best Plymouth lit.

The best part of having many identities was, after all, playing the part.

He got off of the cab with his rucksack in a hand. The cabby followed him and helped him get the suitcases out of the boot and settle them by the rusty gate.

The cats followed all their actions with interest, meowing a few times.

Credence paid the cabby – giving him enough money for the return trip to the City and a generous tip – and, after watching him doing a U inversion in the middle of the road and disappearing at the curve that led them there, he pressed his index on the doorbell button.

Between the bars of the gate, Credence could see the house were Graves lived and, if he had been completely sincere, he would have never put a man like him in that building.

The house followed all the rules of the Italian _art nouveau_ style: red bricked walls, a tight and long porch with grey columns, double windows, decorations that represented flowers on every arch and, of course, the tower.

Credence had had a house built in that style but, during the strategic bombardments of the Second World’s War, it had been destroyed. Not a single wall resisted. Seeing his house shred into pieced had left him so bitter that he had never thought of buying an _art nouveau_ house ever again.

The gate buzzed and opened.

When Credence pushed it, the hinges squeaked.

Four kittens were playing with a leaf that had fallen on the ground, jumping here and there with their little backs arched and tails fluffed up. They didn’t mind Credence the least bit.

Graves had walked down the porch steps and was standing in the middle of the yard, smoking.

“I thought you wouldn’t come.”

The cigarette hung from the angle of his mouth. His gaze didn’t leave the kittens fumbling on the dying grass.

Credence put his suitcases on the pebble walkaway and kicked the gate shut.

The cats on the wall ran away.

“Why would you think that?”

“Because I told you nothing about the murderers but how the victims were found?”

Credence raised his eyebrow. “You put the bug in my ear, so… I really couldn’t stay in London. _And_ it’s been a long time since I have had something to do with a serial killer.”

Graves nodded, took a drag of the cigarette, huffed it out and then said: “And after, you’ll train me.”

“Right.”

“Good” Graves nodded again, gaze still on the kittens. “Then come inside, we have work to do.”

 

*

_Nè mai più toccherò le sacre sponde_

_Ove il mio corpo fanciulletto giacque,_

_Zacinto mia, che te specchi nell’onde_

_Del greco mar, da cui vergine nacque_

_Venere e fea quelle isole feconde_

_Col tuo primo sorriso, onde non tacque_

_Le tue limpide nubi e le tue fronde_

_L’inclito verso di Colui che l’acque_

_Cantò fatali, ed il diverso esiglio_

_Per cui nello di fama e di sventura_

_Baciò la sua petrosa Itaca Ulisse._

_Tu non altro che il canto avrai del figlio,_

_O materna mia terra; a noi prescrisse_

_Il fato illacrimata sepoltura._

Credence folded the photo of the sheet of paper written down by the first victim and looked at Graves. The man had just lit another smoke and was watching him intensely.

They had started working on the case almost immediately. At least, Percival had the courtesy to offer him a glass of orange juice before leading him to the second floor of the tower, where there was his office.

The room was small and intimate, with bookshelves that covered an entire wall, a desk with chair and a rather new laptop and a leather armchair.

The laptop and the wireless internet connection had been a surprise: in Percival’s house the only technological advices admitted seemed to be a cathode ray tube TV in the living room and an ancient radio that occupied a little table beside the glass door in the kitchen. Credence hadn’t even _hoped for_ a computer.

In the studio, Graves had given him a photocopy of one of the photos taken on the crime scene. It showed just a sheet of paper on which the victim had written Foscolo’s most famous poem.

The case was rather simple: a man had been found dead by the maid in his hotel room in New York. His body had been butchered just like the one of Mary Jane Kelly, the last certified victim of Jack the Ripper and there wasn’t a single footage that showed someone enter into the man’s room. On the bedside table, the police had found what seemed to be a letter but, in the truth, was just the transcription of _A Zacinto._

Two weeks later, the body of a woman had been found in London and, this time, she had been killed in a way that recreated the murder of Catherine Eddowes, the _fourth_ certified victim of the Ripper. This time, the poem found had been a piece of Jacopone da Todi’s _Donna de Paradiso._

The gruesome pictures of both murderers were splayed on the desk in front of Credence.

Graves broke the silence.

“They’re obviously clues to the next murder.”

Credence massaged his forehead with the tips of his fingers. “Tell me again how you got this case because I _really_ don’t understand.”

“What if it was some shit the victims wrote before getting killed?” Graves snapped, cigarette sparkling between his thin lips. “What if it was some ‘inspirational stuff’ they had found on a book and wanted to put on paper?”

His hair fell in his face.                    

As the man continued his scene, Credence read once again the poem he knew so well.

And then, it hit him.

The clue had been there all the time, he had just ignored it because he could have never thought of something like that being real. A clue that _no one_ would have recognized because they wouldn’t possibly know about such thing.

Credence waved his hand to shush Graves.

“And don’t you _dare_ shushing me after I-”

“ _I found the clue_!” Credence shouted to make the man finally close his mouth.

Percival who had gotten up and had started pacing all around the room, spreading ashes on the Persian rug that covered the wooden floor, slumped into the armchair, eager to listen.

Credence put the photocopy on his lap. “He wanted me to go back to London.”

He blinked several times, barely believing his own words.

“He wanted me to go back to London… he didn’t know I was already there.”

Other blinks.

Percival got up again and stubbed his cigarette in a little plate he had brought with him from the kitchen. He kneeled in front of Credence, both hands on his knees.

The man’s palms were warm on his legs.

“Who wanted you to go to London, Credence?” Percival’s voice was calm, soft. All his rage had disappeared like the smoke of his cigarette. The skin of his face was stressed, stretched by the weariness of the day. Two deep wrinkles were at the edges of his mouth. Another one was between his eyebrows.

Credence bent forward, too afraid of saying it aloud.

He put his mouth beside Percival’s ear and murmured, barely moving his lips.

“The man who made me like this.”


End file.
